Bob Smith

Sage Advisory Services Ltd. Co. (Sage) is a SEC-registered investment advisor and holding firm headquartered in Austin, Texas. The firm was founded by Robert Smith III and Mark MacQueen in 1996. Sage specializes in domestic and international fixed income, balanced and equity portfolio management for individual and institutional clients.

Benchmark Financial Services, Inc. provides money management solutions. It offers investment fiduciary services, forensic investigations, and litigation support. The company was founded by Edward Ahmed Hamilton Siedle in 1999 and is headquartered in Ocean Ridge, FL.

Smith Affiliated Capital Corp. (SAC) is a registered investment advisor headquartered in New York City. The firm was founded by Robert G. Smith in 1982 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Smith Affiliated Ventures LLC. SAC provides investment advice for separately managed portfolios of individual and institutional investors.

In 1915 Charles Edward Merrill founded Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER) with Edmund C. Lynch in Baltimore, Maryland. The modern Merrill Lynch was formed in 1940 through mergers with E.A. Pierce & Cassatt and, soon after, Fenner & Beane. In 1973, Merrill Lynch adopted a holding company format, with Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. as the parent and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith as the operating subsidiary. Merrill Lynch Asset Management, Inc. (MLAM) was created as an integral business unit in the Merrill Lynch family in 1976. Fund Asset Management, doing business as Mercury Asset Management, was acquired in December 1997. In 2000, MLAM and Mercury were combined under the name Merrill Lynch Investment Managers. MLAM manages the Merrill Lynch family of mutual funds, as and acts as sub-advisor to other mutual funds.

Merrill Lynch International (MLI-UK) is a brokerage firm headquartered in London, UK. The firm was founded in 1988 and is a subsidiary of ML UK Capital Holdings Ltd., ultimately owned by Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) in the US. MLI-UK provides brokerage services to individual and retail clients.

Moody's Investors Service, Inc. is a credit rating and investment research firm headquartered in New York City. They are a subsidiary of Moody's Corp. (NYSE: MCO). The firm performs international financial research and analysis on commercial and government entities and provides a variety of analytic tools for assessing credit risk. Their clients include creditors, investment banks and commercial banks.